WAITING

Sarah Orne Jewett

I can't believe my wedding day was fifty years ago!This is the second day of March! The clock is ticking
slow;The sun shines in across the room. Just see the folks
go by!I can't remember half of them who nod so pleasantly.

The little English sparrows** flit in the lilac bush outside;I like to watch the busy things. There's one that's tried
and triedTo break a string the children tied around a branch one
day;How hard he pulls it with his beak! Now he has flown
away.

So it was fifty years ago! It doesn't seem so long.I've felt my age more this last year, and yet I'm pretty
strong.I don't do much about the house, but still I know what's
done;I know as well what's going on as Jane or any one.

Jane frets me dreadfully sometimes and yet she's always
kind,She helps me when there is no need and has me on her
mind;She needn't think I'm past all use or that I'm like to
fall;I've never missed my footing yet, though I'm so old and
all.

But things don't seem to take my mind that happen nowadays.I like the folks I used to know; I keep old-fashioned
ways;I read the Psalms and Book of John and find them always
new;And I can knit, but I can't sew same as I used to do.

The young folks think they understand just how to manage
life;We old folks pity them; we've learnt its change and loss
and strife.Life is a fight I tell you plain, it doesn't come to
handJust as you want to have it come or just as you have
planned.

If you'd foretold me how it's been through all these fifty
yearsI should have been discouraged and had no lack of fears,And wished I could lie down and die, but somehow I've
had strengthThat's come to me with every day all through my whole
life's length.

I started fair my wedding day, for my dear man was kindAnd always pleasant spoken; we were mostly of a mind.Of course we had our fallings out but nothing that would
last;It always was my fault, for I was young and spoke too
fast.

And John, you see, was older by some ten years than I.At first I was afraid of him when we kept company.He was a sort of man on whom you felt you could depend,But very quiet in his ways. His mother was a Friend.**

My hardest time was when he died. It seemed to me 'twas
wrongThe Lord should take him out of life and let me drag
alongAs best I could, with little means and all my children
small,Just when we seemed to see our way and get ahead at all.

But God knows best. If it had been my life had suited
me;If I had had an easy time, and not known poverty,I should have been a flighty thing without a bit of sense.I turned my hand to everything -- to knit or build a
fence.

There weren't the folks to call on then that I could get
to-day,For help was scarce, the farms were few, and I'd no means
to pay.I went to work with all my might and tried my home to
keep.But I can tell you many a night I've cried myself to
sleep.

I know the Lord has prospered me. I've done the best I
could,And I've stood in my lot and place as anybody should.The farm-land some folks would have sold I held, because
I knewSome day 't would be good property, and all my hopes
come true.

I've parted with it piece by piece -- you see the town
has grown,Just as John always said it would. If other folks had
knownAnd had the foresight that he had! Instead of that they
toldHow I should never get along unless the farm was sold.

My boys grew fast and soon took hold, and then my way
was plain,For all the money they had cost they soon brought back
again;And like a busy hive of bees we were from morn till night;We had our health, the Lord be thanked! and that made
work seem light.

The children all have settled down in good homes of their
own,Excepting Jane, and but for her I should be left alone;She had her chances too, but then she's not the marrying
kind:I couldn't do without her now, I'm glad she stayed behind.

I'm glad I'm mistress of my house; the children often
sayI must break up, that Jane and I were better off to stayWith some of them, for I'm so old and Jane's not over
strong;But I won't listen to their plans; I've made my own too
long.

My life seems like a book that's read and put up on the
shelf;I used to be a hurrying round; I don't feel like myself;Sometimes I'm tired of keeping still, I want to be at
work;I see so many things to do and I don't like to shirk.

I used to have to toil and plan, and now I have to wait,And I suppose I mustn't fret, but in a future stateI shall be sure to find my place and be some use again,For there we still shall serve the Lord -- the Scripture
says it plain.**

So it's my golden wedding day, though we have been apartFor forty years, and yet John knows that he has kept
my heart,And I know that he looks for me and waits for me to come;I've tried to do the best I could -- and here or there
it's home!

Notes

"Waiting" was published in Our Continent (1:172),
April 26, 1882. This publication included etchings by W. T. Smedley. That
publication is reproduced graphically below.

English sparrows: Now generally known as the house
sparrow, Passer domesticus, this European sparrow was imported to
the Americas where it has become one of the most numerous of birds.

a Friend: a member of the Society of Friends or
Quakers.

there we still shall serve the Lord: Possible references
include: Daniel 7:13-14, and 27; Psalms 102:20-22.

Edited and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

Copy of original publication
of "Waiting"

The illustrator is William Thomas Smedley (1858-1920).
Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Smedley studied in Philadelphia,
New York, and Paris. He worked as an engraver and illustrator, travelling
widely to collect images. (Source: Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American
Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers). Among the best reproductions of
his work available at this site are his illustrations for "The Flight of
Betsey Lane" in A Native of Winby.

This poem was available to me only as a photocopy in sections;
therefore this copy of the original publication with its illustrations
is reconstructed from a photocopy and reduced in size for web presentation.
As a result, the print is not really readable, but the illustrations and
layout are reasonably plain.